When I was in high school, I worked after school at JC Penney. It was a thankless job. I cashiered in different departments, but most of my time was spent in the catalog department, taking orders over the phone. Before computers. It was a mess. People's orders got mixed up. The "systems" in place didn't work well. I didn't help matters much because I hated customer service so I, at 17 years old, didn't do much do soothe the already irate customers. Once they found out that I was a pretty fast typist, I spent every afternoon hunched over a "Selectric" typewriter, inputting orders that came in by phone or by mail. Sometimes I just didn't care. It was a lot of work for a kid with a full-time job called school. My back and shoulders would hurt, and the office was the back room of what was basically a warehouse. The boss didn't like me and I wasn't too crazy about her. I think I worked there for about four months. Since the job was part of the school's cooperative ed program, once I decided to graduate early, the job went with it. Or at least I think that's how it worked. Graduating early really ticked off my teacher too, since the program was supposed to be a full school year commitment. I really meant it when I said "I DO", but two weeks into the school year, I was asking myself why I hadn't just graduated in three years, which I certainly could have done. Something about not wanting to miss my senior year. I quickly came to my senses and went straight to the counselor's office. "What do I have to do to get outta here?" I asked. She reminded me of the coop commitment. "Anything else?" Nope. Not really. I had enough credits, I just needed to finish the semester, and so I did. In the meantime, as Christmas neared, I was getting messages from the Dean's office every day, calling me in to work even on the days that I was supposed to be off. Never one to get into any real trouble, it was funny to watch everyone's reactions as that little blue slip came calling. No one could figure out what I'd done wrong. I hadn't broken the news to my coop teacher yet, so he would sneer every time the note came, then calm down when he saw it was a call to work. I guess he figured he was grooming a great employee. He had no idea how many of those orders were messed up because when I got tired of typing, I just put down anything. I should be ashamed of myself, I know, but every time I think about it, I'm not.
I was seriously into vintage clothing, photos, and design even back then. While my mom was throwing things away, I was squirreling them away. My brother worked at Penney's when he was in high school too, and I'm sure he was a better employee than I was. He had a white oxford shirt with the company logo stitched on, that he had to wear because he worked in the auto center. I loved that shirt, and slept in it for years. While I worked there, I took great advantage of the employee discount, and racked up everything from dresses to bowling balls. I once bought my brother a pair of shoes and sent them to him at school. Being in the marching band, they marched in all kinds of weather. He wore his new shoes one rainy day and decided that they were going to be ruined, so he marched barefoot. Years later, I was still shopping there, and ordering from the catalog. They obviously stepped up their hiring game after I left as my orders were never messed up. Better yet, they replaced the manual order input with computers and I guess never had to worry about employees like me again. So I may have actually helped (?)
I found a pair of vintage palazzo pants at SA a couple of weeks ago, new with tags, from MY JCPenney. The old one, with this logo:
The sight of it brought back memories, but more importantly, got me stoked about finding new old stock, that looked this cool:
Now as much as I like a good thrift find, I like a freebie even more. Getting a phone call that someone was moving and giving stuff away was music to my bargain seeking ears. Trudging through the six inches of snow that fell last Sunday in what seemed like about half an hour, I arrived at a six-flat apartment building, with two units full of free stuff. Yeah, Baby!
I controlled myself. I was cold, my knees were hurting, and I was with my sister and her car doesn't hold a lot. I was very picky. The nerve of me!
My first salamander. I think one's enough. Expect an appearance on a black sweater very soon.
I found garden statuary too, and I can't wait to get started but it's about nine degrees out there and I can't even stay outside long enough to even clean the garage. That's bad because I can't put the tree out there until I make space for it. It was there before, but as soon as I brought it inside, all the other stuff just "moved" into the empty spot. I swear that I had absolutely nothing to do with it. The tree is in the space of the chair, and the chair is in the space of the bench that is sitting at the end of my bed. Remember the vicious cycles I was telling you about a few days ago? Such is life in a small house with big dreams. I have to keep moving things around because I'm not going to stop finding things. Not with week one shaping up like this.
Heck, I'm inspired.
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